


The Blackest Hand

by Infernalitae



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Abusive Behavior (It's Alfie...), Alfie is Tommy's Mentor and You Can't Convince Me Otherwise, Assholery, Bad Boy Charm, Bad Boy and a Good Man, Blood and Gore, Botching of Jewish Lore/Tradition/Basically Everything (I'm sorry Religion is Complicated), Canon Rewrite, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Extortion, F/M, Gang Violence, Gangsters, Grudging Alliances, Math Smart Female Characters, No Character Reformation (Alfie's Still a Bastard in the End Because That's Why We Love Him), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Inaccurate Lack of Sexism, Religious Conflict, Romance, Sabini is a Dick, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Swearing, all the sass, enemies to lovers (sort of), gang rivalry, just sass, sappy bullshit, unwelcome feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:34:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27529291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infernalitae/pseuds/Infernalitae
Summary: The most deadly weapons he possessed were not the guns or the knives or even the power. They were without any doubt, the razor-edged minefield of his wit and the mercurial magnetism of his smile. And the truth of it was, she never wanted to care for him. She knew he would become a poison, that he would lay waste to whatever dignity was left to her. Still she took that poison in, perhaps slowly, perhaps grudgingly, but she did – because the truth within that truth was that she couldn’t help herself.
Relationships: Alfie Solomons/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 49





	The Blackest Hand

* * *

**~February 1922**

It was often the case that when facing difficulty, that difficulty became – if only for a moment – the most pressing and terrible crisis a person had ever experienced. Aware of this fact though she was, Helena was quite certain that her current crisis could absolutely be counted among the worst she had experienced.

Glancing up, she studied the iron-bound letters above the wide storefront windows before which she stood – soot-choked, but clear.

_Aerated Bread Co._

A fine, thready chill wove its lazy way down the bones in her spine. Desperation had brought her here. Desperation, and an ad from a morning paper three days old, kept out of necessity, avoided out of fear.

As a rule that seemed to come from God’s own hand, life was hard for women. It was harder still for a woman alone, without family, without property, without a husband most of all. Which was the exact position in which she now found herself: freshly widowed and completely on her own in a city she didn’t know, dangerously close to running out of funds, and standing outside a gangster’s door.

She knew what lay behind the unassuming exterior. She was neither ignorant nor naïve enough to pretend she didn’t. The King might still sit the throne, the Police and the Yard might stalk the streets like carrion birds, but there was no doubt as to who truly ruled London. The gangs as good as owned the cuts of land they had carved from the flesh of the city like so much meat. Lords of their territories, imposing their will on their subjects and dealing violence in exchange for any resistance they might meet tenfold, squabbling amongst themselves and sending their soldiers into battle just as any blue-blood monarchs might.

One could not live in the city for any amount of time and not have some knowledge of the dirty, bloody business of these kings of the streets. Even if only via the overhearing of a rumor. And it was in the best interest of all residents to hold a healthy and wary respect for them, for the common man was far more likely to accidentally run afoul of a gangster than ever to have even the slightest brush with something regarding the King – good, bad, or otherwise.

Given a choice, Helena would have steered far clear of gang business for a number of very good reasons. But she didn’t have a choice. All she had was her wits, her resolve, and what information she had managed to gather in the three days she had been carrying the ad in her pocket like an unwanted talisman, vainly hoping something else would open up.

Nothing had.

There wasn’t much by way of work suited to her that would keep her from near-immediate destitution or that would deign to hire her. Not home in Islington, not in neighboring Barnsbury, nor up in Kentish Town. Camden had been her last hope, and it had proved as unfruitful as everywhere else.

And thus, here she was; desperate and alone, all but at the mercy of a dangerous and notoriously unpredictable man without any guarantee she would come out unscathed, let alone employed. But what else could she do?

Letting her breath out slowly, she reached for the door and stepped inside.

The yeasty-rich smell of fresh bread pressed in on her like the heat of high summer. It provided an almost instant comfort, as did the warmth of the shop’s interior, a relief from the bitter cold of outside.

The shop itself was small, containing little more than a counter and display case. Shelving ran the length of one wall stocked with bins of rolls, biscuits, cakes, and rack upon rack of loaves of all manner of breads, most of which she couldn’t name. Yet more shelves had been put up along the wall directly behind the counter, lined with bags labeled as specialty flour and empty boxes to pack up purchases for easy carry. Shelves which bracketed a chalkboard upon which were listed menus and daily specials. Through an open doorway behind the counter, one had a view of the bakers working at their great, flour-strewn slabs and deep brick ovens.

She had missed the morning rush, yet customers crowded the storefront, poring over the still quite heavily stocked shelves, choosing breads and deliberating over treats. She had to weave her way past a pair of older women contentedly gossiping near the counter, and wondered absently if they were aware who the proprietor of their meeting place truly was.

Truth be told, she didn’t know much about the man called Alfie Solomons. What little scraps she had managed to gather were vague and conflicted rather dramatically with one another. Stories of men’s faces broken open with a strike from an open palm, of money given in generous amounts to charities for the blind and to children’s homes, and of a swift and vicious takeover of local industry. Rumors said he had served as a Captain in the War, that he had won medals for bravery. They also said that he had a foul, brutal temper.

Grip tightening slightly around the bit of paper folded neatly in her hand, she approached the counter and the man stationed behind it, graying, with a pleasant face and bit plump about the middle.

“Good morning,” she greeted, hoping her smile covered the signs of anxiousness. “I have an appointment with Mr. Solomons? I think I’m a bit early…”

“One moment, Miss.”

The man turned and stepped through the doorway, disappearing onto the baking floor.

For the moments she was left alone Helena very seriously considered slipping away. She debated, her desperation warring fiercely with her unease, but by the time the man returned with a second, far younger man in tow, she was still standing at the counter, staring into the glass display case lined with intricately braided breads and truly beautiful cakes clearly intended for special occasions.

The young man was tall and perhaps a bit too sturdily-boned to be called reedy. He wore a trim, dark jacket over the long white apron that reached down past his knees and thick dark curls spilled from beneath the brimless hat fit tight to the crown of his head.

It was a widely understood fact that in addition to being a bookmaker, racketeer, and acquirer and distributer of items procured under somewhat dubious means, Solomons was Jewish. Not that it made a whit of difference to her, it was still somewhat unexpected to see it confirmed so plainly. Though what else she should have expected, she wasn’t sure.

The bakery itself didn’t present itself as being a Jewish one the way the butcher’s shop she passed on her way had, and only one of the bakers she spied in the back wore the religious head covering for which she didn’t know the name. She supposed she had expected a business owned by a man known to brandish his faith like a weapon to be a little less understated. Perhaps business was better that way? Granted, she was ignorant enough about the Protestant faith so many of her countrymen practiced, having not been raised in a home where much importance was placed on religion.

“H. Barton?” The young man inquired, glancing about the shop, bypassing her completely until she spoke.

“Yes, sir.”

His dark eyes rested on her again and held, widening ever so slightly in his narrow face. “You’re H. Barton?” he clarified, and she understood the note of startled surprise.

He was expecting a man. She had intentionally submitted her letter of interest as requested with only her initial in the hopes of disguising her sex at least long enough for someone of marginal importance to speak with her…which this boy appeared far too young to be.

“Yes, sir,” she flashed her most professional smile. “Good morning. I’m here about the bookkeeping position. I have an appointment?”

“Right—yes,” the young man said, lifting a hand and rubbing absently at the back of his neck. He was so young, and he looked so kind – it was difficult to reconcile someone who appeared so innocent, so normal, with the kind of life he must be involved in. “Ah…would you wait right here, please? Miss Barton? I’ll be right back.”

She nodded primly, trying to look as calm and cool-headed as she did not feel. “Of course.”

The young man vanished back through the door and her heart sank into her hollow stomach.

She knew what he would say when he returned. He would thank her for her time, offer to call her a cab, and send her on her way. When she pressed him, he would tell her that she simply wasn’t suitable for the position. At best he would lie and say they had filled the post earlier in the day. Simply by virtue of being female she was automatically more suited to being a shopgirl than to having anything to do with the accounts, no matter her competence or experience.

Well, she had never been a meek little mouse and she wouldn’t be starting now. Not for any reason. She would fight for it if she must, stand her ground and demand to be granted the interview she’d been promised, even though the prospect made her slightly nauseated. She didn’t exactly relish the thought of stirring the ire of arguably one of the most powerful gangs in the city, but at the very least she could be completely upfront about why exactly it was that she deserved a position like this instead of settling for doubling her hours as a typist at a steel mill and still not earning enough.

When the man returned she lifted her chin, forced her shoulders back and gave him her best no-nonsense look, argument held ready on her tongue.

“Apologies for the wait,” he said, gesturing her forward and into the back. “This way, please.”

She blinked, startled. “I…thank you.”

It occurred to her as she followed him through the hot, bustling bakery that she had no real idea what she was walking into; that a lack of the resistance she had anticipated might be less indicative of a positive than outright refusal would have. Clearly he would have gone to tell his boss that the expected candidate had turned out to be a bit _un_ expected. Yet he had been sent to bring her back anyway. What did that mean?

He led her into a dim, narrow service hall, and in that moment the full weight of her ignorance struck her. She might know a few of the intricacies of the dealings of such people, but only vague inklings of what those dealings actually looked like. What she did know was enough to tell her that she should treat whatever awaited her with precisely the amount of trepidation she felt, and with the understanding that a big enough misstep could land her in very serious trouble.

 _Tread lightly_ , she warned herself, _be careful what you say._

They came to a door, light spilling out in a warm yellow stripe where it had been left open a crack. Light which somehow managed to feel ominous. Lifting a hand, her escort rapped twice against the wood.

“In,” came the response from beyond, and Helena felt the fine hairs at the nape of her neck prickle at the rolling growl embedded in the single, short word.

The young man gestured for her to enter, pushing the door wide.

She didn’t want to go in. She very much _did not_ want to. Yet in spite of the dull chime of warning at the back of her mind, she mustered every ounce of courage she possessed and walked into a tidy office that smelled of dust and disuse, and which was _far_ too small for the man seated at the desk which served as its primary feature.

It wasn’t clear why it felt that way. He wasn’t an altogether very big man – larger than many if the width of his shoulders was any indicator, but he was no giant. Nor was he actually sitting so much as lounging, one foot propped against the edge of the desk as he leaned back in his chair, studying the piece of paper he held through a pair of spectacles. He didn’t look up as she approached, which offered her the opportunity to study him a bit more closely.

Helena couldn’t actually decide if she should be grateful that she didn’t appear to warrant an audience with Solomons himself or offended by it. At the precise moment she was leaning more toward the former.

If nothing else, she had definitely expected a much older man to belong to such a rough voice, but he couldn’t be beyond his late thirties at the most, even taking the glasses into account. And even if she were being brought in front of an assistant or one of the bakers as she obviously had been, she would have expected someone far less…disheveled. The shirt he wore was too large for him, the sleeves rolled causally back to bare his forearms, and his waistcoat gaped open, as did his collar; certainly not a man prepared to conduct a business interview, or to refuse one.

“So…”

Tossing the paper to the messy desktop the man lowered the spectacles from his nose and lifted his head to look at her. The instant he did she knew exactly who he was.

Truth be told, he appeared nothing like a man who ran several businesses and even less like what she had thought a gangster of his caliber must look like. She had imagined someone who looked as though they’d had the time it surely must take to cultivate the kind of reputation he had, someone like the famed Italian mobsters she had glimpsed once or twice in their sleek, expensive suits. Someone who presented himself like the kind of man with the drive to shape a life of money and power and danger. He looked like a working man. Yet she could see the cool ownership in his posture, the effortless, almost dismissive ability to command attention that could be neither imitated nor feigned.

He had a straight, strong nose with a single hitch marking an old break, and a firm, formidable jaw underneath the bristle of his dark beard. It was unfashionable, yet it suited him, emphasizing the cut of his cheekbones. The pale line of a scar ran along the length of the right side, cutting through the thick beard there as though someone had slit him from ear to mouth. A hard man, no mistaking that. She didn’t especially like that she found him handsome. That was something else she hadn’t expected.

While Helena considered herself to be a steady woman, not that easily cowed, it was difficult to feel in any way steady when meeting a gaze as sharp and keen as that of Alfie Solomons. There was danger in those sharp blue eyes. An unspoken, deep-laden warning. The kind a predator might cast on the world around it, a constant balance of threat and measure.

In the space of a second she felt as though she were being stripped down to where she kept her secrets. It made her intensely uncomfortable.

The door closed with a soft snick. She knew from the muffled rustle of apron cloth that her escort had entered behind her and swiftly quashed the urge to glance at him over a shoulder in some voiceless plea for help.

“Well, sit down, then,” Solomons invited suddenly, indicating the chair situated at the other side of the desk with a flourish of a hand. She caught the glint of the many rings he wore when he moved, drawing focus to the length of his fingers and solid knuckles. Strong hands. Hands that had done awful, brutal things.

Cautiously she lowered herself to the chair, moving with an almost unthinking slowness as though trying to avoid provoking a bear. For all that she tried to project calm and confidence, she had no doubt that he saw it for the farce it was. Nothing about this endeavor was going the way she had expected, prepared for, and though she was hurriedly trying to pick up the scattered threads of her strategy it was proving a challenge.

Lowering his foot to the floor he leaned forward, resting bent elbows on the paper-strewn surface and folding his fingers together as he watched her. “What can I do for you, love?” he asked, the cockney slant lending an almost jovial note to the low, gruff cadence of his voice.

“I…I’m here about the—we had an appointment to discuss the accounting position.” Swallowing against the nervous tightness in her throat she straightened and dove into her practiced speech: “I just want to begin by saying that while I know I don’t seem the most likely of candidates, I would ask you to—”

“No,” he cut her off shortly.

She blinked, taken aback. “What—”

“Answer’s no,” he repeated, unsteepling his fingers and reaching back for the paper he’d been studying prior, jerking his chin vaguely to her left and over her shoulder. “Now, if there’s nothin’ else, door’s where you left it. Trot on.”

Panic was rising again, a sour and strangling surge from the pit of her stomach. Numbly she felt the hand at her elbow, the young man’s request for her to come along a faded noise in the back of her mind. She had failed again. Her last chance gone, just like that. Just…

The grip firmed, though it was gentle as he urged her out of the chair. Yet her mind was spinning as confusion bled through the vise of her terror.

Something wasn’t right here. Why would Solomons drag her into this office only to turn her away the instant she opened her mouth? Why bother to see her at all? He was a busy man – surely too busy to waste his own time in such a way.

She had told herself she would fight, hadn’t she? That she would stand her ground? Planting her feet into the floor she pulled back against the guiding pressure at her arm and did just that.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” she said after a breath of hesitation. “But I don’t understand. You knew I was a woman before I even walked in. If all you were going to do was turn me away, why the hell did you bother to see me at all?”

Solomons paused, his gaze utterly inscrutable. “Leave ‘er be, Ollie,” he told the young man, who released her immediately.

Letting the spectacles drop to hang from their chain around his neck he once again lowered the paper back to the desk. This time when he studied her it was with a definite, pointed downward flick of his eyes, taking in what he could see of her form where it was – thankfully and mercifully – situated behind the heavy furnishing.

“Call me curious, right,” he mused, “what is it that brings someone all the way from bloody _Islington_ , disguisin’ ‘erself with ‘er dead husband’s name just to get a foot in _my_ fuckin’ door? ‘Cause I can’t quite figure it.”

She could feel the color leeching from her face, the nervous energy bringing a faint tremor to her hands, which she quickly folded in front of her to disguise. He knew who she was. But then naturally he must have looked into the applicants for the sake of caution. So he knew that the room she had rented under Henry’s name at the White Dove had only one occupant, knew Henry was dead, knew where she was from.

He didn’t seem angry, or even annoyed, for all the coarse language might have suggested it – language of which she had expected quite a bit more of, if she was honest. Nor had he repeated his order to leave. What she couldn’t determine was whether his asking questions was a good thing, or a bad one.

“I’m so sorry for the deception, Sir,” she hurried to say. “I just—”

She stopped, suddenly annoyed with herself. She had nothing to apologize for. He knew full well why she had done it and he’d chosen to see her anyway. She wasn’t ashamed of it, and even if the only reason she was in this office was for the novelty she presented, then she was going to make the most of it and damn the consequences. What did she have left to lose?

Lifting her chin, she met his unnerving gaze and held it.

“I’m good with numbers. Better than good. I’d been doing accounting work for my father since I was old enough to write until I was married because I had a better head for it than anyone else he could find. I can do whatever you need me to do and make it look like whatever you want it to look like. If there’s something I don’t know, I’ll learn. If it takes being here all night with a pen in my hand for as many days as it takes.”

“What makes you think I’d consider you now,” he posed bluntly, “lyin’ right out th’ gates like that?”

She met his arched brow with one of her own. “With all due respect, I very much doubt you give a damn about a lie like that. I wouldn’t be here if you did.”

A hint of wry amusement flickered somewhere behind the impassive expression he wore, which she took as an invitation to go on.

“Rather than offer the post to someone in person, you listed an ad. Which means either you have no one able or trustworthy, or you’re looking for something outside of what’s at hand. Anyone you might bring in is just as likely to be spy or a copper or something of the like as the next person. I find it hard to believe you don’t have some contingency in place for that. A vetting process. Like the one you’ve clearly done on me.”

Solomons stroked his bearded chin, a thoughtful, habitual kind of movement that inadvertently pulled her attention down to a mouth unexpectedly full and soft in comparison to the rest of him.

“If you want the best person for the position, then you want me. Test me, if you need to, but please don’t disregard me just because of what’s between my legs.”

If she expected surprise at her words, she was disappointed. Though once again she caught a faint flicker of something else behind the measuring consideration in his face which she didn’t understand. He looked almost…pleased. Which made no amount of sense.

“So, _Mrs._ Barton,” he said softly, the subtle emphasis he placed on the honorific before her name drawing a faint ripple of uncertain tension down her back. “A lovely sales pitch tha’ was.”

His eyes were steely in the garish yellow light, gone suddenly very keen on her face, and Helena found herself completely unable to read the way he was looking at her.

“Y’say you can make _anythin’_ look like _what_ ever I want it to look like..." he repeated slowly, and with a sick, sharp twist in her belly she understood her mistake.

The ad in the paper had been for a simple accountant for the bakery proper. There had been no implication of anything illicit, because of course there hadn’t, and her mentioning it might very well label her as exactly opposite of what he would find remotely suitable. How in heaven’s name could he believe she would keep her mouth shut about his business under pain of imprisonment and hanging if she couldn't veil it here and now?

She had wanted to impress on him that she was willing to get her hands dirty...but now she wondered if she had just broken the earth for her own grave.

"I—I didn't mean,” she began quickly, “I just meant that—"

He held up a hand to quiet her. "I know what you meant, love. Relax. What’d yer husband do?”

"He…worked in the Yardley steel mill. He was assistant to one of the executives."

He leaned back in his chair, angling his chin down slightly as he did. Unlike the younger man, he wore no head covering, though she didn’t know enough about the culture or belief to know what that indicated. There was a hint of ginger to his hair, and while it was cropped short she could tell how thick it was. It would likely have a rich wave to it with some length.

“Right. Tell me this, then. You could get a job almost anywhere and be jus’ fine. Why’s it so bleedin’ important that you ‘ave this one?"

He would pick up on that, she thought grimly. But then, she would wager there was very little that escaped his notice.

“My husband,” she explained heavily, all of a sudden feeling overwhelmingly tired, “inherited quite a bit of debt from his father when he passed. Creditors came calling almost as soon as we buried him. Between the two of us we could keep up with the payments, but…it’s a lot of money. Then there was Henry’s burial, and I—just can’t manage it all on a typist’s salary. Any work I can get easily doesn’t pay enough and the jobs that would won’t hire me because I’m a woman. I’d hoped maybe that wouldn’t matter to you.”

Which was the truth. He was a bloody _gangster_ , after all. What did he care for common convention?

“What kind of debt?”

“Bank loans,” she answered. “Apparently my father-in-law had a lot of expensive vices on top of a mortgage he couldn’t afford.”

A low sound rose in the back of his throat: not quite a hum, not quite a grunt, but somewhere in between, like some strange mix of agreement and commiseration. Or so it seemed to her. He regarded her steadily from below heavy brows naturally suited to brooding, silent for a moment, before reaching to the table and gathering up a sheaf of papers. He slid them toward her, the chain looped around his thick wrist jangling softly.

“Take a look.”

She stared at him, baffled.

“Go on, then,” he encouraged, and only when he gave a tiny nod as assurance did she lean forward to study the proffered documents.

She was frankly shocked at first simply that he would let her see them, being barely more than a stranger off the street and therefore surely a risk. But the surprise faded quickly as she scanned the list of sums and ran into the first discrepancy.

It wasn’t obvious. The only reason it stood out to her was the slight hitch in the penmanship, a variance in the thickness of the writing that naturally drew the eye. Once she saw it, however, the next one was that much easier to find.

As was the one after that.

A puzzled frown pulled between her brows. “This can’t be right,” she muttered, shuffling to the next page and running through the list, calculating quickly in her head.

Was he testing her, the way his telling her to go had been – obstacle and adversity thrown at her to see what she would do? She wasn’t sure what she was meant to be looking for, what he expected her to see and therefore report to him (or not); but considering what it was she had come here for, she felt she would be remiss if she didn’t do the work that would have been required of her were she to take such a position in any other context.

“According to this,” she said, indicating the pages with a loose wave of a hand, “a good deal of money just up and disappeared over the course of four months. Somewhere around three-thousand pounds…”

*

Not much tended to surprise Alfie anymore.

He wasn’t what civilians would call an old man, but considering that life for someone of his profession tended to be hard-lived, often ending with both violence and abruptness, every year he outlasted such an end seemed the equivalent of five. To be approaching forty was nigh on broaching his sixties in outlaw time, and was an achievement few of his kind managed to claim. Especially one that had undertaken the sorts of dangerous shite he had.

Alfie tended to put the not insignificant marvel of his survival down to two things: the fact that he was a wily son of a bitch, and that he was quite hard to fucking kill. And the foundation for those two things lay in his uncanny ability to read people.

It was a knack he’d had since childhood. He simply understood people – the way their minds worked – not unlike the way a watchmaker understood the way all those tiny gears and springs and metal parts came together to result in the desired ticking and time-telling. It wasn’t always easy. Still, on occasion, it downright baffled him just how oblivious others could be. He was methodical, sure, and perhaps a bit more clever than the average bastard born in poverty on London streets. But honestly, it was merely a matter of observation and will.

Human beings were ultimately simple creatures, even in their machinations and complications, and as entertaining as he found them, it wasn’t often that he found himself caught off guard by anything they did anymore. In fact he made it a point _not_ to be. Even the quickest of reflexes could not guarantee the deflection of a killing blow, and ignorance was equivalent to a great bloody chink in his armor. He was pretty fucking quick even after so many years, but he still preferred not to take the chance.

It was why he did extensive research into any potential move he considered making, no matter how small. A scratch gone sour could kill as effectively as any bullet; and it was always the little, easily overlooked things that got you in the end. He could attest to this personally. Or, rather, so could the many no longer breathing men upon whom he had utilized such little, overlooked things.

Nearly the first thing he had learned about Mrs. Helena Barton was the fact that she was not, in fact – as her application implied – the man she was no doubt hoping he would assume her to be. The records of her husband’s death not six months back had been easy to locate, yet he’d had no doubt of her hopes that a prospective employer who checked would not look quite so thoroughly. He could have dismissed her as a prospect right then simply on the basis of attempted manipulation. The very last thing he needed right now was to bring in a potential problem. Yet frankly the fact that she had applied at all had stoked his curiosity enough to bring her in. He had to respect the conviction, if nothing else.

Investigation had told him she was fairly young still, which added a bit of extra tragedy to her recent widowhood, and that she had no children. Yet even armed with this knowledge he had been completely unprepared for the woman Ollie ushered into the back office.

Calculated man that he was, every part of his greeting was precisely planned from his posture to the choice to blatantly ignore her for the full count of fifteen seconds. It was a tried and true strategy, one which served to assert dominance as much as to throw off any preexisting expectations that visitors might bring in with them. The irony in this was not lost on him. Certainly not when he’d looked up and felt as though he’d just had the butt of a rifle slammed into his gut right along with his _own_ bloody expectations.

Where he had anticipated a plain, frumpy bit of a thing – and all right, so he was a bit of a presumptive cad to lean on the stereotype of a bookish spinster which she clearly hadn’t been – there was…something entirely different.

No wonder Ollie had seemed shell-shocked when he’d come back to inquire what to do with the applicant that had turned out to be female.

If the moment he used to take her measure was a bit more generous than usual, it was purely because he was indulging in the opportunity to look his fill. She was the kind of pretty that might have gone unnoticed at too quick a glance, but he had no need to lean on his trained eye for fine things to spot that she was clearly very much a lady in spite of her obviously mended coat and faded hat. Dignified. Somber, though there were dimmed hints of past laughter on her face. Still a relatively new widow, he reminded himself, and if she'd loved her husband it might take her years to recover. A pity that. He’d wager she'd be right lovely if she smiled.

He met her gaze, and damn if she didn’t have the kind of eyes that could steal the bleeding soul right out of a man’s body if he wasn’t looking after it. And a right lovely mouth. The rest of her was quite lovely too, what he could make out beneath the bulky coat and unassuming dress, both dark – he assumed – because she was still somewhat in mourning. Which really should have stopped him from picturing her bent back over his desk downstairs, but didn’t because he was a right shameless bastard.

He’d always had a bit of a weak spot for the pretty, dark-haired ones.

He could tell straight off that she was afraid of him, and for good reason. His reputation rather preceded him, and a clean, decent young lady from a less grimy, gritty part of London was bound to be somewhat reluctant to be in the same room with the likes of him. That was to be expected. What surprised him however, was that when he gave her a brisk (or downright rude, depending on one’s perspective) dismissal, fully expecting her to take the opening to escape, she planted herself firmly in front of the desk and _argued_ with him.

Oh, she was perfectly polite about it, but she made it clear that she did not appreciate his wasting her time even in spite of the nervousness he still felt humming about her like the charged air preceding a lightning storm.

So she had a bit of spine in her. Something he found delightfully intriguing.

“Test me, if you need to,” she demanded, fixing him with a look that would accept no nonsense from him in return. “But please don’t disregard me just because of what’s between my legs.”

_Fucking hell._

The very _last_ thing he would do with what was between her legs was disregard it.

He was sorely tempted to say something wicked, to see if he could bring a blush to those cheeks. But while he was no paragon of what might constitute as professional propriety, he _was_ a fucking businessman, and if he was going to consider hiring her there were some things that needed sorting.

All it took was a glance and a listening ear to put together that the only reason she was there was that she had no other options. She also thought herself quite capable, which he was inclined to believe. He was not fool enough to buy into the sort of tripe men liked to use to set themselves as superior to women in intelligence, and had looked deeply enough into her background to know her claim was founded. On paper she was well qualified. Still, she was a respectable sort of woman. One that very much did not belong in a place like this, and wouldn’t have been unless she had good reason to be.

He already knew plenty to surmise what that reason was. There was no family in a hospital with bills coming in, no property to see to. The suddenness of it in tandem with the death of her husband really only left one possibility. Yet he made her say it even as he could see how uncomfortable doing so made her, prodding at a tender place to see whether it gave under the pressure or held firm.

He recognized the weariness she let show, bone-deep and heavy from a weight borne for too long. Now that he'd been able to watch her move and talk he could see it: the slightly too-delicate state of her, the hint of shadows under her eyes and in those too-pale cheeks that shouldn’t have been there.

Yes, he knew what had brought her. She had been saddled with a burden that should not have been hers to bear and creditors were no better than bloody carrion birds, hovering and grasping, picking at the flesh of a grief still warm – no more or less cruel than any gangster. At least gangsters were straight about what they were. They didn’t pretend to be noble pillars of civilized society all the while taking just as much blood as he did from those who slipped their protection payments.

Alfie was almost angry on her behalf; that the dismissal of shallow-minded men had driven her here for a solution when she was clearly afraid and distressed. And he was, somewhat.

He didn’t particularly care for punishing those who had not committed their own wrongs, signed their own agreements or contracts, which was precisely what was going on here. Though if he was truly that sorry, he would have offered to take over the debt and give her better terms to pay it off without needing to work for scum like him. But he wasn’t that good of a man, and he had far larger interests than the welfare of just one of the many who’d stumbled into a run of misfortune. Misfortune and desperation of this kind served as a pressure point to be utilized, and no matter how pretty or sad she might be, he _would_ utilize it if the need arose.

Sitting back in the chair, he watched closely as she looked over the lists he had proffered.

Out of the few applicants he’d brought in – and then subsequently dismissed – she was by far the most astute and straightforward. That counted for quite a bit in his opinion. She knew she was being tested, if not exactly how, just as she’d known everything he’d done and every question he’d asked had been a test of sorts. She had also put together that he had been seeking applicants from outside because there was no one within his existing employ that he trusted with his books that also possessed the particular mental fortitude he required. He no longer had the time to do it himself and his other numbers men were based firmly on the racetracks where their specific skills were best suited.

Running the pad of his thumb against the edge of one of the rings on his right hand he watched her flip between pages, her nose wrinkling with an almost affronted confusion.

She rather reminded him of a rabbit: small and quick and alert, a bit fragile. Soft. Easily broken.

“This can’t be right,” she muttered to herself, and he fancied he could almost see the mechanics working beneath her skull.

The business of gangsters tended to run along similar veins. His was much the same: bookmaking, racketeering, the fencing of goods acquired under questionable means, the illegal making and just as illegal distribution of liquor. There were significant amounts of money trickling in from a great number of sources day to day. Throwing in the legitimate earnings on top of it all equated to some complex accounting which had to be kept in immaculate order and required careful supervision to be so. It was a demanding task, and one that could result in disaster very quickly in the event of even a tiny error or if the slightest detail was missed. Whether by accident or intent.

Mrs. Barton gestured to the papers in her hand. “According to this a good deal of money just up and disappeared over the course of four months. Somewhere around three-thousand pounds…”

“Nah, love,” he corrected, “only two thousand there.”

"No—"

Clearly unthinking, she moved around the side of the desk toward him and arranged the pages before him, pointing to a specific column. Lifting his spectacles to his nose, he leaned forward to examine the spot.

“See, there. And…there.” She indicated another section on the second page. “Whoever did this wasn’t very good at it—obviously, since they’re no longer employed here. But they did manage to hide these fairly well. So it’s three thousand quid missing. Not two.”

It took him a moment and a bit of quick calculating to realize that she was right, which made at least two things true. It brought the total amount Hammond had filched to almost five and a half thousand – the pig-fucking cunt – and while a neat thousand pounds wasn’t much comparatively, it only took a pebble to throw off the balance of a stack of barrels. And this was a particular pebble neither he nor any of his most mathematically inclined staff had managed to catch, which would most certainly have caused problems somewhere down the line.

Well, well. She _did_ have a head for accounting.

“So it is,” he mused, shooting a quick glance toward Ollie, who looked just as impressed as Alfie was beneath his careful mask. “Paid attention to yer maths lessons, didn’t you?”

He probably shouldn’t be so pleased, after all, being able to decipher flaws in a few pages out of several conflicting and intertwining books was only one piece of a complicated whole. But the rest could be taught, and he was unable to deny that she was without a doubt the most capable of any applicant he’d yet had. That and she was clever. Clever and watchful.

She was watching him now, soft gray eyes banked with an uncertain kind of caution, unable to determine whether she had passed his test or not.

“‘ave a seat,” he said, directing her back to the chair across from him. She sat almost gingerly, smoothing the front of her faded coat as she did, the secure confidence she had carried while working with the lists diminished by an influx of nerves.

Folding his fingers together, he fixed her with a look of cool contemplation, noting the way her shoulders hunched ever so slightly inward as if instinctively moving to protect herself.

“My previous accountant saw to all my books, right. Stupid bloody prat that ‘e was, thought it’d be good sport to skim a bit of cream off th’ top, so to speak. Thought no one’d notice, seein’s how I’m occupied with a bit of a…disagreement with some Italians at present. Thing is, I might not’ve minded as much if ‘e’d at least had the decency to cover ‘his tracks a bit better. Might just’ve broken a leg, ‘stead of ‘is back.”

She didn’t flinch, not truly. He caught the very faint creasing around her eyes, the subtle bob of her throat as she swallowed, but otherwise she remained cautiously calm.

True, he hadn’t been the one to take a sledgehammer to the man’s spine, but it had been done to his explicit instruction. Hammond wasn’t dead, but he’d spend the rest of what time he had in either constant pain or a drugged stupor, which, in Alfie’s eyes, was far worse. He didn’t get off on frightening or threatening women, but if she was going to work for him then he needed to make it plain that the lines he set were not to be crossed, just as he would with any man. And she took him precisely at his word, there was no doubt of that.

“But there it is, innit,” he shrugged. “My own fault— _mea culpa_ an’ all that. Proprietor I may be, but I simply do not ‘ave the fuckin’ time to oversee all aspects of what’s become a demandin’ enterprise.”

Her mouth opened as though to interject, but quickly shut again, the reflex rigorously curbed.

“Speak yer mind. If somethin’ needs airin’, should be now.”

Slender dark brows lifted in a mild show of surprise. “Oh—no, I was just going to say that of course you don’t. I know how much time and energy it takes running just one business let alone…several. That’s all.”

Interesting.

He nodded absently, filing that away for later reference. “Mmm. Thing is, right, a man in my position requires certainty, and certainty you are not.”

She tried valiantly to keep her disappointment from showing, but wasn’t quite quick enough. Her face fell, a wan hopelessness pulling at her chin and weighing her shoulders down. Her entire form seemed to wilt like a flower left to wither in the cold, her last option dashed. Or so she thought. If he had been prone to such sentiment he might have described it as downright heartbreaking.

A split second later she forced it down with the same stoic fortitude she might have shown in swallowing a foul tonic of some kind and mustered a faint ghost of a smile.

“I understand,” she assured him, and he rather thought she did understand, as much as she was capable. She shifted in the chair as if making to rise. “Thank you for—”

“I can’t give you th’ books straight off,” he cut off the expression of gratitude she had been about to make for the time he’d taken, and she froze, surprised. “Nothin’ outside of the legitimate operations, anyway. We’ll start you in the bakery proper—on sort of a trial basis. On paper I run things, but, as I mentioned, I ‘ave other things to see to. So I’d need you to manage the shop and the financials, keep track of what sells and what doesn’t, see to the supply orders, an’ the like.”

The expression on her face was a stark mix of uncertainty and suspicion. She was clearly waiting for the catch that was sure to come, which was another sign that she had promise. A suspicious mind was a mind that much more likely to survive. In whatever capacity.

“You’d report to Ollie every day for the first week, and to me once a week after that. More often if necessary. And I’d trust you to be able to distinguish when necessary is.” He emphasized this point with a raised brow. No response was forthcoming, but he knew she understood. It was her task to inquire and find out what that may or may not entail.

A frown pulled at the corners of her mouth. “But…you’ll still need someone to do the accounts, won’t you?”

“I’ll ‘andle it for the time being. After a few weeks we’ll reassess, yeah? So long as you do good work I’ll keep you on. As for the rest, we’ll see ‘ow things go.”

The relief was starting to shine through now, a soft, bright spark of it from behind the veneer of caution. While she might still suspect him to slip something nasty into the deal – he would have been disappointed if she hadn’t – she had allowed herself to feel it, that she was relieved of at least some of the pressure squeezing at her like whalebone.

“Well, Mrs. Barton,” he asked, spreading his hands wide. “Those acceptable terms for you?

“I—yes, Sir,” she said, stumbling over the words at first in her haste to get them out, gripping her somber dignity in white-knuckled hands to keep from subsiding into the relief which he heard in the faintest hints of a sob. “Yes, thank you. I’m…I realize you’re taking a chance on me and I’m grateful. I’ll do everything I can to earn it.”

Oh, he had no doubt of that.

“Lovely.”

Rifling through the chaos of the desk, he unearthed the pen he had buried and a clean sheet of paper, on which he began to scrawl a quick note.

“Right, the Dove’s a bit of a trek, so I’m goin’ to move you to a place a bit closer. Owner’s a friend and’ll go easy on your rent to start. Show ‘im this when you get there and he’ll get you sorted.” Friend might have been a bit of a stretch considering said owner of said boarding house paid him for protection every two weeks on the dot, but that seemed inconsequential just now.

Mrs. Barton looked taken aback, but not outwardly disturbed by this. “All right.”

Folding the paper in half with a sharp crease and deft flick of a wrist, he gestured behind her with the end of the pen.

“That there is Ollie,” she glanced over her shoulder at the lad, who offered a nod, “he’ll see you back out, call you a cab back to the Dove. I’ll ‘ave someone there within the hour to ‘elp with your things. Take today to get situated. I’ll expect you ‘fore openin’ tomorrow, yeah? An’ this—” Reaching into the left pocket of his trousers he extracted a billfold and removed three ten pound notes, which he slid across the desk toward her along with the note. “—is an advance for anythin’ you might need now and to ensure yer next payment is taken care of on time. Don’t need you comin’ in with that weighin’ over you when you’re tryin’ t’ learn.”

Alfie observed the look she shot the money, noting that he’d finally managed to outright shock her. And all right, he supposed it was a bit of an unconventional move, but he could tell she hadn’t been eating well – though how much of that was stress and how much was a lack of funds he couldn’t say – and he knew firsthand how difficult it was to learn on a hollow belly. It was possible, desperation was a powerful motivator, but it was far from ideal conditions and he had enough experience to know people who were fed and taken care of worked better and formed stronger loyalties. And maybe she had tapped into a bit of a soft place inside him. He wasn’t completely purged of them yet, in spite of his efforts.

Her somber gray eyes flicked from the money up to him, and he approved of her wary hesitation. “Not to seem ungrateful,” she began, “but this is—why would you go out of your way to do so much when I’m not even going to be doing the work you advertised for?”

A fair question. And a wise one.

He tapped a finger against the lists she’d examined.

“This right ‘ere. You caught an entire thousand pound over what myself and two of my best didn’t, and caught it _fast._ There’s skill in that which can’t be taught or learned. It’s innate, innit. That skill is worth a lot to me. I don’t much care where it comes from, and I’m willin’ to take a bit of a leap of faith.”

“What if I didn’t show up tomorrow?” she added then, clearly stull not entirely sold on his logic, “isn’t that a risk?”

He leveled a coolly bemused look at her.

“You plannin’ on stealin’ from me?” he drawled airily, arching a brow.

“No, Sir,” she was quick so assure him, shaking her head so sharply that a dark strand of hair slipped from where she had pinned it up beneath the hat to coil soft at the side of her neck.

No, indeed.

“Go on, then,” he said, dismissing her with a nod to the money and the note. Tentatively, almost delicately, as if handling an explosive, she took them, offering a final murmur of thanks as Ollie led her back out into the hall, leaving the door to the office cracked behind them.

His eyes dropped to the list pages, finding the places where his new bakery manager’s fine fingers had traced out the well-hidden discrepancies there.

Well, well.

A man should live at least for curiosity, right? So said the wise, and at least four Rabbis.

Scratching absently at his beard, he lifted the spectacles back to his nose and hollered toward the door: “ _Frank!”_

Several seconds of silence followed by the creak of door hinges. “Yeah, boss?”

“Get Benjamin in here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, hello, and welcome to the second of my fics born out of Covid-driven mania inspired by Tom Hardy (the beautiful bastard).
> 
> There's not a whole lot of originality here. I'm a ridiculous sap who is utterly enamored with this stupid show and this fucking character and just wants to give him some goddamn love. Hopefully I can tell a fun story to read in my attempt to do so. That's the goal, anyway! And I know this is kind of a rough first chapter and...yeah, somewhat iffy as far as believability is concerned. I struggled quite a bit with how to introduce someone into Alfie's life in a way that wasn't super typical because this is fantasy and as much as I try to lean into realism and to stick as close to the show reality as I can, this just ended up being the thing that took hold. Plus, I feel like if anyone would be intrigued (or unbothered) by the unconventional it would be him. But beginnings are always hard, and this one was especially so. I promise it'll get better. 
> 
> As my writing speed tends to be about as mercurial and unpredictable as Alfie's temper, especially this year, I can promise neither quick nor regular updates. But I can promise that I will update as much and as quickly as I possibly can. I'm not even sure how much interest there is to read something like this, and I may very well just be writing this for myself, which is quite all right. If not, then again, welcome to my bullshit - enjoy!


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